#2- Start lifting weights

Strength and power are important parts of competitive judo and BJJ and will help you in the long run if you use them correctly.

Yes – I understand that judo and bjj is about using a person’s strength and momentum against them. But let me explain.

Lifting weights helps your grappling in a few ways

Injury prevention: twisted knees, separated shoulders are some of the most common injuries in judo. BJJ – generally a bunch of niggly annoying joint injuries. How can you prevent these from happening? You can train lighter, OR you can protect your joints with some natural grown armour – that is muscle.

Improving your technique: how is this possible? Shouldn’t you use as little strength as possible? Yes, but let me explain how this works. The stronger and more explosive you are, the better you will do in competitions. The better you do in competition, the more higher level players and coaches will want you to train with them. The better your training partners and coaches are, are the better you will become at judo.

But what are some good programs to improve strength?

The type of strength need for grappling is similar to most other sports in many ways.

You need sheer, full body strength that can be utilized in a functional and explosive manner. Not a bunch of isolated muscles that look big.

So how do you get this?

There are four main phases or types of training you need to do

Phase 1) Train your central nervous system (CNS) to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible.

Phase 2) Increase the size of the muscles recruited.

Phase 3) Train your muscles and your body to be explosive as one coordinated unit.

What you need in grappling is a strength advantage RELATIVE to your weight class. How do you do this? Recruit more of the muscle fibers you already have. 1-5 Rep Maxes with COMPOUND exercises such as those below will train your body to do this.

Squats

Deadlifts

Bench Press

Olympic lifts (snatch, clean and jerk)

This is a cross section of a muscle belly. Let’s say your bicep. Right now it is quite likely that your brain is only trained to activate about half of all those muscle fibers you see in this cross section. Training your CNS will activate much more of the same muscles you already have allowing you to output more force with the same muscle. So if this is your bicep, you’ll be able to lift much more with the same size muscle.

Phase 2) Increase the size of the muscles recruited.

Once your brain/ Central Nervous System knows how to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible you will max out the amount of force your muscles can output. The next thing you need to do to output more force is to increase the cross sectional size of your muscles . The more cross sectional area of a muscle that can be recruited, the more strength output you have.

3 sets of around 10 Reps with what are known as ACCESSORY lifts. These lifts are used to address weaknesses or imbalances you have and are ultimately to improve your lifts in Phase 1

Dips

Dumbbell bench press

Rows

Bulgarian Split Squats

Lunges

Chinups

tricep extensions, bicep curls etc.

So combine Phase 1 -increasing the number of fibers recruited and Phase 2 – larger muscle fibers means you will have a greatly increased cross sectional area applying force.

Go through the interwebs, talk to people who train, browse Reddit. You will find that a wide array of people have had great success using WS4SB (including myself). I started training WS4SB 4 years ago and gained about 35 lbs in 4 months (I was eating like a mad man, and yes my body fat did go up, but maybe by about 5%).

WS4SB was designed by Joe DeFranco who runs DeFranco’s gym. He has trained many athletes from high school hoppefuls to NFL, NHL, MLB players. His program works!

Just a note: there are 2 main versions of the program. IN SEASON and a 4-DAY TEMPLATE.

If you are NOT training any grappling at all. Do the 4-DAY TEMPLATE version. This is a 4 day split. It’s hard and requires a lot of recovery.

If you ARE training a few times a week still. Use the IN SEASON TEMPLATE.

Ok, so you’ve done WS4SB for months and now you are one coordinated, powerful ah-tha-lete waiting to take on all comers. You get back on the mats in September and you are GASSED! Why is this? Because you need to train muscle endurance for your specific sport.

Phase 4) The Final Step: Train your muscle endurance

Judo and BJJ are also different than ball and stick sports in that you need a lot of muscle endurance.

What is muscle endurance? Well, it’s needing to have as close to maximal muscle output during the entirety of a randori /roll or competition round.

HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training is the absolute best type of weight training you can do to get you ready for grappling competitions. Not only will it help you keep your muscle while cutting weight in anticipation of a competition, your endurance will be WAY up from your baseline.

How do you do HIIT? Basically timed interval training typically with either weights, kettlebells, calisthenics, sprinting or jumping.

Many people have found kettlebells to be one of the best ways to train muscle endurance for grappling. This is for a number of reasons:

Increased grip strength

Increased endurance of weighted and timed exercise

Better transfer of strength from kettlebells to grappling than from powerlifting